RE: Is the Ruger 204 Big enough for Whitetail
NO, darnit! It's not just telling others what they should or should not do, it's about policing our own so the government, at the behest of the anti-gun anti-hunting organizations, won't do it for us.
He asked if the 204 Ruger will kill a deer with a shoulder shot. I'd say possibly, but not likely. That little 20cal bullet is lucky to make it through a coyote, let alone through a deer's shoulder.
And while he did not ask about the ethics of shooting deer with a 204 directly, he didn't ask the question for any other reason than he, or someone he knows, is contemplating doing just that which opens the door to a discusstion on not only if it will kill a deer, but if it's ethical to use it for that purpose. I've always been an opponent of using the .224cal centerfires for deer, and I certainly oppose using even less gun for the task. I've said it before many time, and I'll continue to say it as long as the topic of going intentionally undergunned keeps coming up again and again. Just because a perticlular cartridge CAN kill a deer, doesn't mean that it's ethically suited to deer hunting. I don't give a crap about all the anecdotal "evidence" that <.22cal CF's kill deer, it still doesn't make it ethical. Because for every story saying how fast somebodys brother/uncle/second cousin kills deer with their .223Rem, there are probably a dozen stories that never get told about wounded deer that have never been found. Unfortunately we rarily hear about these because those who visciously wound deer but fail to recover them for no other reason than choosing an underpowered rifle are too embarrassed and ashamed to admit it to their peers.
My opinion is this...while a .204 Ruger CAN kill a deer (as can a .22LR), it's absolutely NOT ethical and sportsmanlike to do so. The .204 Ruger was NOT designed to be a big game cartridge, period. If you want to hunt deer, go buy at least a .243 Win. If you can't afford a .243 and still want to hunt deer, trade in the .204. Just because the .204 is the only gun you have doesn't excuse you from the questionable ethics of using it. Because every deer that's wounded by a hunter feeds the fires of those who want to ban hunting by lending creedance to their argument that hunters and hunting is cruel. We owe it to the ourselves, our fellow sportsmen, and the animals we hunt to use tools capable of humanely taking our game even when the conditions of the shot aren't perfect.
Mike